Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program Track 4: Longitudinal Study of Mathematics Teachers' Persistence and Instructional Practice

About This Grant

This Noyce Track 4 project aims to serve the national need of examining the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. This project will focus on the persistence and the effective instructional practices of mathematics teachers. Currently, many schools have high teacher turnover rates, and many teachers experience significant challenges during their first few years of teaching. To address this problem, this research project will collect audio and video data to learn about the experiences and practices of mathematics teachers in their first five years of teaching in high-need school districts. The proposed project hopes to understand the different forces that support teachers during their first five years of teaching, how they make decisions about instruction, what opportunities they have to continue learning, and what their aspirations are for the future. In this way the project seeks to generate knowledge that is useful for retaining effective mathematics teachers, including those who serve rural communities. This project at the University of Arizona includes partnerships with Northern Arizona University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and numerous local educational agencies. Project goals include exploratory studies that address both STEM teacher effectiveness and retention in high-need LEAs. The research project will use evidence-based principles in studying the effectiveness and retention of STEM teachers. This longitudinal research study will employ a mixed-methods approach and draw upon theoretical constructs such as cognitively-demanding tasks, students’ mathematical mindsets and productive struggle, self-determination theory, and network theory. Research questions include (a) How are mathematics teachers’ career trajectories, and their persistence in high-need school districts, influenced by their experiences of autonomy, competence, and relatedness during their first five years of teaching?, (b) How do Noyce program experiences influence mathematics teachers’ career trajectories and their persistence in high-need school districts?, (c) How do mathematics teachers develop effective practices related to student well-being, engagement in cognitively demanding tasks, and development of positive mathematical mindsets? and (d) How do Noyce program experiences influence the development of teachers’ classroom practices? The sample of 25 mathematics teachers will be drawn from high-need school districts across five states, including rural, suburban, and urban districts. Data collection is to include surveys, interviews, and video recordings of classroom instruction. This project will be iteratively evaluated. Evaluation of the project will be guided by the following evaluation question(s): (a) Q1. How might the research be adjusted to provide greater insight into the research questions, including adjustments to instruments and methodologies to ensure the production of generalizable knowledge that is useful to the field? and (b) Q2. To what degree are dissemination efforts reaching the desired audiences, and what improvements might create more meaningful dissemination? The results of this project will be disseminated to help enhance the field. This Track 4: Noyce Research project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.